Field of the Disclosure
This disclosure relates generally to information handling systems and, more particularly, to a multi-phase voltage regulator for an information handling system.
Description of the Related Art
As the value and use of information continues to increase, individuals and businesses seek additional ways to process and store information. One option available to users is information handling systems. An information handling system generally processes, compiles, stores, and/or communicates information or data for business, personal, or other purposes thereby allowing users to take advantage of the value of the information. Because technology and information handling needs and requirements vary between different users or applications, information handling systems may also vary regarding what information is handled, how the information is handled, how much information is processed, stored, or communicated, and how quickly and efficiently the information may be processed, stored, or communicated. The variations in information handling systems allow for information handling systems to be general or configured for a specific user or specific use such as financial transaction processing, airline reservations, enterprise data storage, or global communications. In addition, information handling systems may include a variety of hardware and software components that may be configured to process, store, and communicate information and may include one or more computer systems, data storage systems, and networking systems.
Information handling systems may include a variety of hardware and/or software components that may be configured to process, store, and/or communicate information. Information handling systems may also include one or more multi-phase voltage regulators to ensure that necessary electrical current is consistently supplied to one or more devices in the information handling system. Typical multi-phase voltage regulators may include a voltage regulator controller and multiple power stages, each power stage may include a temperature output/fault pin (TOUT/FLT) that may allow for temperature monitoring and fault detection of the power stage. In the typical multi-phase voltage regulator, the voltage regulator controller has only a single temperature monitor pin (TMON) that connects the voltage regulator controller to the multiple power stages via a shared monitor bus. In this configuration, each TOUT/FLT of each individual power stage is wire-ored to the shared monitor bus, which results in the individual power stage that has the highest temperature to dominate the bus with the highest temperature. The voltage regulator controller may not have the knowledge of the temperatures of each of the other individual power stages or which individual power stage has this highest temperature. In addition, when an individual power stage signals a fault on its TOUT/FLT on the monitor bus, the voltage regulator controller only knows that one or more of the multiple power stage is signaling a fault but it does not know which one. In a voltage regulator protection scheme, the voltage regulator controller may shutdown all of the power stages, causing a power disruption and potential loss of data. This may prevent the voltage regulator controller from monitoring the temperate or detecting any faults for an individual power stage.